


This one goes out to the one I love (This one goes out to the one I've left behind)

by A_reluctant_dreamer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, During the first Endgame trailer when Tony drifts in space alone, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Past Underage Sex, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 16:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18450329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_reluctant_dreamer/pseuds/A_reluctant_dreamer
Summary: Food and water ran out four days ago.Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning.And all Tony can think of is Peter Parker.





	This one goes out to the one I love (This one goes out to the one I've left behind)

Food and water ran out four days ago.

Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning.

And all Tony can think of is Peter Parker. The teen he recruited so foolishly without thinking about the consequences. Not those that concern the boy’s life or physical well-being. He was Iron Man, he had his back.

No. The other ones. The ones that resulted from the fact that the boy was infatuated with him. He saw it there, that first time in Peter’s bedroom. It might have been a celebrity crush, but that boy would have happily let him fuck him right then and there.

Tony didn’t want to. He’s not that kind of person. He never expected to be tempted by such a young man. That was part of the reason he ignored the complication that were the boy’s feelings and took him on anyway.

But then it all changed. Steve and the rest of them moved out. Even those who fought with him left. He would have been all alone if it wasn’t for the boy. At first, he resisted. He knew he’d be using the kid. But then the loneliness got too painful and he began texting Peter back.

It was nothing the boy wanted. It was neither missions nor sex, but long afternoons in the workshop, tinkering a few steps from one another, exchanging a few words occasionally. Tony needed the company, the admiration, even if it was so ridiculously unfounded. He didn’t give much in return. However strongly he craved human contact, he remained distant when he got it.

Peter seemed unfazed by his silence. He kept coming back for more. He kept being nice and enthusiastic. And he kept touching Tony. It wasn’t much, just a brush of their shoulders when they waited for the elevator, a brief touch when they reached for the same tool, a gentle squeeze of the arm when they greeted each other.

Tony didn’t notice when he started looking forward to these touches. He noticed the first time when one of them sent a jolt of arousal through his body. That night he returned to the workshop after Peter left and stayed later than usual. He continued upgrading Peter’s suit, but couldn’t chase the images of what he could do to the boy off his mind. He hated himself more than usual that night.

It was only later that Tony started wondering if it showed. That he was having different kind of thoughts about Peter. Not that Tony did anything like getting off to Peter. It was more like passing images of how he could bend the boy’s pliant body over one of the workbenches or if he could make Peter come during the 57 floor elevator-ride between the garage and the workshop.

Even if it did show, it must have been imperceptible, but Peter seemed to pick up on it immediately. His touches became more frequent and lasted longer. He kept looking at Tony, trying to catch his gaze even when they just finished exchanging those few, strictly necessary words.

Tony didn’t give in. He knew perfectly well that he could reduce Peter to a begging mess on the floor with just his gaze. But he didn’t. He doesn’t start things he won’t finish.

As time passed though, Peter managed to make Tony’s gaze linger on him a few seconds longer. By the time Tony had had a mental image of fucking Peter in every last corner of the tower, that _won’t_ became a _mustn’t_ which turned into a _yet_ as Peter’s seventeenth birthday drew near.

They didn’t plan it. At least not out loud. Tony’s certain that Peter had played a thousand scenarios in his mind. Tony didn’t. He just let the images come and go. But when the real thing happened it burned into him. Every touch, every thrust, every moan.

He knew that he took Peter’s virginity. He half-hoped afterwards that it was enough to get this crush out of the boy’s system. It wasn’t. Peter started acting out, kissing him in the elevator, wanting to talk. Tony shut him up by fucking him and he always kept it in the workshop. It was a special way to torture himself, doing it where he spent most of his time. He used to think that it was his atonement. He was wrong.

No matter how great the sex was it didn’t shut Peter up for long. It wasn’t even a month before Peter spoke up. Tony admired him for it. He didn’t have that kind of assertiveness at seventeen. And he didn’t have it that night when Peter finally decided to take a stand, either. Though, for assertiveness, he would have needed to have some idea of what he wanted to say. Tony didn’t have any. Or he had too many.

He will never forget the hurt look in Peter’s eyes. It didn’t take any particular effort to say the words. It was never meant to last anyway. It was never meant to begin at all. Peter was always going to go and find someone _real_ for himself. Someone who could be there for him. Who could give him more than a sensational fuck and a great view to the city.

 _See you at the next mission, kid._ It was supposed to mean never. He expected Peter to hate him and never to come near him again. Then move on and not even think about him. He didn’t expect him to turn up at the next mission and save his life. Nor to follow him to space.

He should have, though. Tony always knew that Peter had feelings for him. It was always there in the kid’s eyes. Tony saw it, but he never understood. It took him until he held Peter dying to realise that no one ever looked at him that way and no one ever would.

After Peter died, Tony was shattered by grief and remorse. But the real pain only came later, when in the solitude of infinite space Tony’s mind recast endless images of the boy. There was Peter laughing, there he was astonished, exhausted, lustful, excited. There he was crushed. Shunned. Rejected. There he was defiant. Fierce. Frantic. There he was dying. He was hope.

Tony always believed that there wasn’t any hope for him. It started with his father, but it was being himself that convinced him. He wasn’t one to chase a will-o’-the-wisp. He was damaged, beyond repair, to be handled with impossible care and still likely to break. He didn’t expect to thrive. Maybe it was what made him strong. Not having hope. It made things easier. Helped him think clearer.

Tony wants to live. Not to fight, not to avenge, not to heal. He only has a few hours’ worth of oxygen left. For the first time in his life there really is no hope for him. But he wants to live for as long as he can. He wants to live and feel the pain that there _was_ hope for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted with a moodboard at: https://areluctantsblog.tumblr.com/post/183617674564/this-one-goes-out-to-the-one-i-love-this-one-goes
> 
> Title and fic inspired by the R.E.M. song The one I love
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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